Stu Wexler

Is there evidence that the FBI talked to him about it? Is it documented?

Again:  we have the Alyea film which shows what is clearly an MC rifle found where people said it was found. There are some claims that should no longer be propagated. 

https://www.politico.com/story/2019/08/02/stephen-miller-green-card-immigration-1630406

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41562-021-01287-2#Sec4

While we are talking about Pena. More than once he made reference to a guy named Wilfredo Mas as a key player in the New Orleans exile community and possibly in the JFK case. There is virtually nothing on someone named Wilfredo Mas.  Anyone know more?

Stu

I tried to find Roache. He is dead. I tried to find people who knew him and worked with him. Found one but he was not much help.

Weisberg has some stuff on Smith in his files. It seemed as if he showed up somewhere Weisberg was meeting a witness. The unfortunate thing is that David Smith is far too common a name.

Many years ago I did an old NARA online search for Customs/INS files. Many files appeared to have been destroyed.

Stu

Now that is clear that ET is also in the John Hunt photos, I believe it is imperative that we get both Gary Murr and David Mantik to offer their thoughts on the matter. When did Mantik, for instance, do his analysis? Gary M did his before John Hunt had those pictures taken.

It is still the case that an HSCA workup on all the ballistics materials showed no markings for ET. I will go back to them and double check one more time when I can. Again, they were not specifically looking for initials. But they noted the initials on each fragment/round as well as discolorations, etc. I think it may behoove us to see if any of said analysts are still alive and willing to comment.

I am not anti Steve Roe on this. I think he did a service by finding the initials. Earlier in the year Greg D also thought he saw Todd's initials and I think he would confirm that all I did was to encourage him to dig deeper.  He came back and, to his credit, said they were not there. Here I do see them both on Roe's and Hunt's photos. 

I hope we get some follow up. And ofcourse it does not mean CE399 caused all the non-fatal wound damage to JFK and JBC. I still put that at a very low probability.

And finally I want to say that any insinuation that John Hunt deliberately hid something is absurd. He was a friend and someone of the highest integrity. His contributions to JFK and RFK research are immense. Indeed, his work on the diminished velocity theory of the SBT is as devastating as anything on the subject.

Stu

Ofcourse the question some of us are asking:  what does he say about Gene Wheaton's allegations?

The HSCA firearms panel  did a microscopic analysis and reported every nook and cranny they saw on lab reports. They were not specifically looking for initials but they reported everyone but Todd's. David Mantik and Gary Murr looked in person. John Hunt had high resolution photos that are online. And Gregg D. went looking with the same NIST stuff a few months ago only to say he was wrong and did not see them. I am actually hoping he (and Gary M) both comment on this. Did Gregg do a thorough search or only the area he suspected had the initials?

I would normally concede this but all of the above has me a bit suspicious as it came after Stone's film advertised it widely. If Greg and Gary (and Mantik) concede they could have missed it. I am inclined to say it has been missed.

Stu

Steve,

I went back to that thread and saw that you had someone looking into it at Fairleigh Dickinson. Any word on that? I am in NJ and an willing to go and look.

Stu

Was it Truly or Shelly who had outside payment?

Wait. Malcolm has a picture of Oswald in Florida?

I do not have time at the moment to go into it, but I have presented on this before. The "Oswald" in the Bolton Ford incident was very likely Charles Waters a hanger-on with anti-Castro militants. He is a very interesting character. That said this does not have to be some elaborate plot. My guess:  Tujague got pissed that a former employee went to the commies and those in his circle were not opposed to using it as some sort of inside joke. I do think it could have become something else by 63, including involving Waters.

David Wimp pointed this out years ago. I think it definitely is a key insight that requires explanation.

So the photographer item has not been previously released? Obviously it came from somewhere so it upsets the official version whether he was actually in Mexico City or not.

So is there new material in the doc beyond what was in Tink's book?

I don't remember where I got this; it might have been you, Vince. But seems to me this is a pretty important lead worth following

While there is near unanimity on this forum that there was a conspiracy, if Prayer Man is Oswald it would effectively end the discussion for everyone else.

Photo people:  is it possible to do serious digital enhancement work on a once-removed version of Darnell? Or does it have to be the original. And can we get original access to Weigman?

It is one thing to say that witnesses can be unreliable. But for basically every single witness in the immediate area to fail to notice it is a problem anything pointing to Hickey is a problem.

As per the rear entry wound in the EOP. I do not dismiss it. But the issue is if it is in the EOP you not only have the 6.5mm fragment up near the cowlick but you have radiating fracture lines right near it.  Curious how you explain that without X-ray tampering. 

Side note. I once explored in a lot of depth an account, given by Donahue's daughter, that he had been given access to a film, from a different vantage point than Zapruder, in Germany. Donahue had passed by that time. No luck despite considerable effort on my part to verify. Did you ever explore this?

You are correct Mark. But I had another person fire two bullets off an oak and into dirt. If you could average the two bullets you would have CE399, almost exactly. The bullet also had a more profound deflection than anyone expected.

Yes. But there is some level of bend on CE399 that suggests it struck *something.* I saw an oak tree branch and some dirt.

I am watching the start of the documentary now. As you said earlier, Mantik confirmed the lack of markings. But you did not say how much credit you gave to John Hunt. As his friend, it was fantastic to see his work getting as much credit as it deserved. I hope he is smiling somewhere from beyond.

7 hours ago, Greg Doudna said:

Pat I just reread all 88 pages of your 4b on "Threads of Evidence" (https://www.patspeer.com/chapter-4b-threads-of-evidence), simply stunning. The match of the tuft of fibers on the rifle with fibers from C150, the brown shirt on Oswald at his arrest (and not a match with any other Oswald shirt), and the testimony of Stombaugh that the fibers were recent, is too much coincidence: either Oswald fired the rifle while wearing C150 or it was planted on the rifle, one or the other. What you bring out is devastating that Oswald was not wearing C150 that morning whether on the sixth floor or anywhere else in the TSBD. Oswald said he had worn a red shirt to work that morning, said he changed his shirt at the rooming house (according to Fritz's handwritten notes, and Thomas Kelley's notes), and you show a color photo of C151, a maroon (red) shirt found at his rooming house exactly where Oswald said he had put the red shirt he had worn to work that day--and it is red. Is it true that it took until your own efforts as late as 2016 before any color photo of C151 became publicly known? If so, that is just astonishing--because visually one can see that it is just obvious that was the red shirt Oswald said he had worn that morning. C150 is brown not red, and C151 is red--reddish or maroon--not brown. C151 was the shirt Oswald wore to work that morning from Irving. But as the testimony from the TSBD witnesses indicate, Oswald would have taken off his shirt upon arrival to work, hung it in the "domino room" on the first floor, and worked in a white T-shirt only, just as on other days, and as seen that day. He did not have any shirt on at 12:30 pm except a white T-shirt. Therefore Oswald could not have had a tuft of fibers from C150--which at that moment was not being worn by anyone, at the rooming house on Beckley--caught on the metal plate at the butt of the rifle while firing the rifle at 12:30. The white T-shirt only being worn by Oswald at the time of the assassination is as solid as any multiple witness testimonies can be--Mrs. Reid, Shelley, Truly, Jarman. Oswald wore C151 to work, took it off and it was in the first floor domino room while Oswald worked in his white T-shirt, seen ca. 12:32 pm in his white T-shirt by Mrs. Reid on the 2nd floor 1-2 minutes after the assassination, then Oswald returned to the first floor, put on his shirt, C151, the red shirt, and left the TSBD wearing that shirt, C151, which he changed along with his pants at the rooming house on Beckley in Oak Cliff at about 1 pm, changing into C150 the brown shirt, the shirt which the FBI said showed a match of fibers to the tuft caught on the rifle found at the TSBD.

You bring out compelling argument that never-reported tests were done on the shirts--C150 and C151--for gunshot residue. Why not reported or disclosed? Your proposed explanation makes sense: that like the cheek paraffin test, the shirt gunshot residue tests may have indicated Oswald had not fired a rifle that day while wearing C150. That finding would have impeached what had from about day two become central to the narrative, the fiber match of C150 to the rifle, and if C150 was then excluded by a means of testing as having gunshot residue on it, that would not only have looked exculpatory for Oswald but even beyond that would have inevitably looked to the world (in this case arguably accurately) like the fiber match from C150 may have been planted on the rifle, part of what in the UK is called "stitching up" a suspect with some evidence by law enforcement in order to assist in getting a conviction. Then you bring out the stunning fact of the FBI agents showing only the brown shirt C150, and not C151 the red shirt Oswald said he had worn to work that morning--to the TSBD witnesses to identify (and the rejections of identification of C150 from those witnesses). 

You bring out the testimony of witnesses who saw a man with a rifle on the sixth floor of the TSBD having seen that man in a light-colored shirt, not in agreement with the brown shirt C150 whose tuft of fiber the FBI reported finding on the rifle consistent with a wearer of C150 firing that rifle that day. 

Especially interesting is your putting together (at p. 17 of 88 on my printout of your 4b; section titled "Was Something Up Their Sleeve?") the document about the Secret Service in Dec 1963 receiving Oswald clothing including that red shirt (C161) from DPD from which the Secret Service intended to forward to "the Alcohol and Tobacco Tax Lab"--and your connection of that (of which nothing further is known from documents on the Mary Ferrell site?) with a September 1966 forensics conference in which three scientists from the Laboratory of the Alcohol and Tobacco Tax Division of the IRS reported "test firings were made with foreign rifles, and paraffin lifts of hair and shoulders were examined for the presence of antimony and barium ... this work indicates there is a distinct possibility that the method can be applied to the detection of rifle firings"--and your suggestion that that 1966 conference report may be related to never-published, never-reported, testing done by that lab on Oswald clothing for gunshot residue from the JFK assassination Mannlicher-Carcano. After restudying your 4b, I do not think that tuft of fibers from C150 (in agreement with C150, to be technical) of recent origin on Oswald's rifle was caused by handling of that rifle by Oswald prior to Nov 22, 1963. And a lot of evidence pretty much establishes "beyond reasonable question" that Oswald was not wearing C150 at the time of the assassination, which raises the question of how that tuft of fibers came to be on the rifle.

I believe Walt Brown has argued that there was cross-contamination of fibers to various items based on how they were stored and shipped from Dallas to DC. Eg it would not be planting but it also would not support Oz's guilt.

The problem with that is that it was routine and required and so you would have to think that in the most important moment of his career Elmer Todd just dropped the ball even though it appears he would have engraved it right when everyone else did. I guess it is possible. My better bet: CE399 deflected off an oak tree limb into the wet dirt in DP.  It may be the bullet Walther found. A separate bullet from Parkland is sent earlier, the one engraved by all the techs including Todd. This other bullet,  presents a problem bc it is inconsistent with other rounds. So it is deep sixed (for fear that any conspiracy leads to WW3.) Once that bullet is trashed, the one that arrives from Dallas that struck the dirt and becomes CE399 must account for wounds it did not create. Don Thomas independently believes something similar. 

23 hours ago, Steve Roe said:

Greg, yes it was marked by Elmer Lee Todd. This nonsense is now in Oliver Stone's 2-hour film, written by Jim DiEugenio. about Todd not marking the bullet. Here's further proof.

showDoc.html (maryferrell.org)

 

Yes, it was initialed on the nose of the bullet by Elmer Lee Todd. Thanks for debunking this crazy nonsense. 

showDoc.html (maryferrell.org)

Steve you are missing the point so let me clarify it. Elmer Todd initialed *a* bullet recovered from Texas. He later identified his initials on *that same* bullet. If that bullet were CE399 his initials should have been etched in like everyone else who later received it. They are not. What happened to them?  You have to argue that they faded away such that no one who has seen it, both live and in high res photos (that you yourself can look at) can find them. Yet initials for other people at the lab who engraved their initials at the same time as Todd, per FBI procedure, are on CE399 and all the other ballistics material those lab techs engraved. So you would have to believe Todd's initials disappeared while the others' markings somehow stood the test of time.  *Or* you can believe that another bullet came from Dallas, the one Elmer Todd engraved, is not CE399 and was removed from the evidence stream.  Which one is more likely?